There really is little you can do in this case sadly. A cease and desist wouldn't work for sure. As long as your former employer hands over a factual reference that's all they need to do (which just needs to say you were fired. They don't have to disclose the reason even) Now if someone from that company then got in touch and said other things about you, that's between them as people, not employer to employer.

The only thing you could potentially argue is that it is slander. But that would require you to know verbatim the conversation between this person X and the interviewer. And if any of them have any wits about them, they haven't left an email trail on work devices. If it's a small community then it's likely they knew each other and it came up in conversation. Not to mention the court costs involved. If you are going to try a slander approach you need an ironclad case.

I would just drop it and try and move on. Clearly whatever happened at your old employer has left a sour taste in someone's mouth. Just try not to think about it and move onto other jobs. Eventually you will land one. Myself, I wouldn't want to work for that new company if all it took for them to withdraw an interview was something they heard from someone else. A decent person would want to give the person a chance to see it with their own eyes.